


Feigning Sleep

by Mchogone



Category: Persona 3
Genre: Dark Tone, F/M, M/M, Mortality Check, Sad boie times, Spoilers, dark themes, slight mention of violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2019-05-26
Packaged: 2020-03-17 14:50:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18967441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mchogone/pseuds/Mchogone
Summary: He can't sleep. Sleep would lead to his death.[End-game Spoilers]





	Feigning Sleep

**Author's Note:**

> i'm really not sure how to tag this so, um. here you go.
> 
> dark themes mentioned? i'm really not sure what the hell i wrote, actually. just a boie contemplating his life.

He hasn’t slept in months.

 

His thoughts and fears keep him awake, he doesn’t even bother to change out of his school uniform anymore other than to wash it. He doesn’t go anywhere near his bed, only ever being in his room to change. He can’t stand to see it, surprisingly. If he laid down, he’d fall asleep instantly. It was already difficult enough staying awake in class.

 

But he wouldn’t allow himself the reprieve of sleep.

 

He’s already the reason it was forced upon one of his allies.

 

He stared up at the night sky, the city’s lights drowning out all of the stars except for the moon. He remembers the fight well enough, the exhaustion of it never leaving him. But he would take the pain in the world to give back the lives he’s inadvertently destroyed. The lives he’s taken. The chill of spring, the season of rebirth, couldn’t be more ironic in that moment. The season of beauty, plants coming to life as the harshness of winter died off. The season that held the aftermath of a world on the edge of death, the life inside of him dying. Slowly, painfully, he knew he was withering away. But he had to hold on to it, had to know where the future would leave his companions. Either the two beings that clawed and marked his skin were laughing, watching him suffer in pain as he had to put on a apathetic smile, or he was the stronger of the three, keeping a hold of his consciousness while the majority of it was on another plane of existence entirely.

 

It was the former. He wasn’t strong enough, he knew it.

 

The wind softly pushed against him, the buzz of the city not reaching his ears as soft music played from his headphones. To keep him awake, to keep him from falling into the pain, into unconsciousness that would bring his death. The eventual screams when someone found his body, rotting away with the fate of him unknown to the world, the only thing being whispered through the years being a sudden fall. Maybe his body would just freeze, the blood refusing to move, his heart refusing to pump, and his death be labeled as a heart attack. And yet, he was the weak one, allowing himself a moment of emotion, knowing that the extra cold on his cheeks wasn’t from the wind hitting him at a perfect angle, but from the tears he let fall freely. An emotion he refused himself to feel, an emotion locked away under the watch of Death itself, only given back after the final battle. A feeling of sobs letting loose, the air that he couldn’t breathe even past the pain and suffrage as a simple human ability makes him helpless. He brought up his sleeve to wipe them away, it wouldn’t be the first nor last time he would cry, the tears picking up on the slack that several years must’ve made.

 

He only stopped when another cold surface touched his shoulder and one of his headphones was gently removed.

 

It couldn’t have been anybody else - nobody would go up to the roof at 1 AM anyway, nor was anybody’s hands that cold. So he turned around to face Aigis, a robot-turned-human, one hand holding his headphone and the other practically gripping his shoulder. “It’s unhealthy to stay up this much.” She stated, the voice that should’ve been as dead as him being full of life that he was unable to rob. “Why aren’t you in your room?”

 

He shrugged the hand off of his shoulder, or at least he attempted to. But her hand remained on it. “It doesn’t matter.” His voice didn’t sound like it came from him, the voice wavering as more tears threatened to fall. The roof was blurry past the liquid, the music he had been listening to turned off as Aigis walked in front of him and shut it off herself.

 

“It does.” She let his audio-player drop back against his chest, still keeping her hand on his shoulder, the cold grounding him. “You’ve been in pain these past months, haven’t you?”

 

Hasn’t he, he thought with a twinge of anger, but mostly overcome with sadness. He hasn’t been able to feel his apathy in the past months, putting on a false show to his companions who didn’t know otherwise. His companions, who don’t remember, who haven’t batted an eye to the world and who haven’t thought about what he did on that day.

 

Aigis brings him into a hug. The wind isn’t a match for Aigis’ cold body.

 

“That sounded insensitive.” She stated. Calmly, simply, bluntly. “As a robot.. I don’t- I can’t understand you as much as someone else can. I can’t be treated as you, on an equal level.” She pulled out of the hug, hands softly resting on his shoulders. “Maybe that is why I do understand, in the end.”

 

He thought of her as human. She was cold, bizzare, and had guns for hands, and yet she showed sympathy in her eyes. Behind the blue gaze, the cameras he could see even from a distance, held a human emotion. They were similar, in that regard, bodies given the ability to feel.

 

“You still need to sleep. You seem to act like eating will take care of that need.” Aigis took her hands off of his shoulders. In one swift motion, he was in the air, her cold arms below his knees and back. Out of the fear of falling, he wrapped his arms around her neck. She didn’t care, heading towards the open door on the roof. The tears in his eyes blurred the wallpaper, Aigis kicking the door shut and heading down the stairs.

 

“Put me down.” He weakly protested. Being carried like a child too afraid to let go wasn’t high on his wish of wants, the list itself having been crumbled and burned the first day. Aigis didn’t react, continuing to carry him down the stairs. Past the meeting room’s door, past the hallway that lead to the girls’ rooms. Past memories that should’ve died with him, memories that  _ did _ die with him. Past the boys’ rooms, down the hall of regrets and words unspoken, of a door he’s sat outside and a urn he refused to let go of. He couldn’t stand either, looking to his own door that sat opened. Aigis entered, once again shutting it with her foot, and carried him to his own bed.

 

He struggled much more now, but in the end, he was laid down. He shot up, but Aigis’ hands on his chest stopped him.

 

“Why don’t you rest?” She asked, hands still pushing him into the bed. It wasn’t as strong as he knew she could be, but strong enough that his worn body couldn’t fight it. “You both need and deserve it.”

 

“I don’t deserve it.” He replied, voice hoarse. The tears have stopped, but the remaining sadness was still there, lurking under his skin alongside the guilt of living. If he sleeps, if he lets himself go, if he lets the pain take over, that will be like destroying everything he’s done. An act of rebellion against the gods that tear him apart, and an act of selfishness at wanting to keep a hold on the flicker of life. A small, flicker of hope, wishing all of them were here, by his side, acting as if they were regular teenagers. But they’re not, he wasn’t, and the only person at his side was Aigis. “I  _ can’t _ sleep, Aigis.”

 

“Tell me why.” Aigis stared at him, “I will do my best to make sure you are well.”

 

Aigis knew. Aigis remembered, there was no way the robot could understand otherwise. She had to have known, the only person able to know. He could tell her, tell her his fear of dying. Hosting Death, fighting Shadows day in and day out, even battling the God that would bring about the End of the world, nothing could prepare him to face his own demise. He couldn’t smile at his death, couldn’t fall into slumber knowing he wouldn’t wake up again. All of this time, he knew he could die, he faced the feeling of death every time they went into Tartarus. The Evokers were shaped like a gun for a reason.

 

And yet he couldn’t stare down his death with finality.

 

“I don’t want to die.” He found himself whispering into the night. He’s lost feeling in his arms and legs, he couldn’t focus on anything other than his cheeks and chest, the coldness keeping his body in check. But surely, he knew, whether he wanted to or not, he would be forced to sleep, forced to accept his death. Forced to let the pain, the loss, take him over.

 

Aigis, suddenly and unexpectedly, crawled onto the bed with him. With little grace, she wrapped an arm around his neck and one over his chest, pulling herself close to him. The cold gradually woke up some of his body. He slowly moved his head to look at her, furrowing his brow slightly. “Your heartbeat,” She commented, ‘It was slowing down. Can.. Can you not sleep?” He could’ve sworn he heard fear laced in her voice.

 

He gave a weak ‘Mhm’. Aigis held onto him tighter. “Cold wakes humans up.” She put her head in between his cheek and his shoulder. “I’ll keep you awake. I’m sure, as long as your heart beats, you are alive. I won’t let you get to a point where you…” She didn’t finish her sentence, but she didn’t need to. “Go ahead, close your eyes.”

 

He didn’t want to. He really didn’t want to. Sleeping brought death, yes, but for even longer sleeping brought guilt to him. He didn’t want to see his guilt projected onto him, the urn down the hall taunting him with false feelings that used to be under lock and key. The death he caused - he didn’t deserve to die, not because of his need to live, but he couldn’t share the same space with him knowing of his fate.

 

Aigis’ head move to look up at him. “You will stay here.” She said, “I’m here. And so is he.”

 

That brought surprise and confusion. The human-robot always knew what he was feeling, if the past couple of minutes wasn’t enough proof as-is, but to make a bold claim, like Aigis could see ghosts. An ironic twist on the situation. Aigis continued, “You’ve fallen asleep in front of his urn before. I’ve also found you in his room. You didn’t talk to him, an attraction is a reasonable conclusion to come to. Did you not wonder who brought you back to your own bed those times?” He didn’t care to have thought about it, those nights of emptiness and of wants referred to as dreams that should’ve been forgotten come morning.

 

“I ensure you, you won’t be bothered.” Aigis continued to push. It sounded like a plea. “Just rest.”

 

He couldn’t - he shouldn’t, and yet, his body was drifting away. His eyes were fluttering closed, without tears to stop him, the only thing in his vision the dark room and the light coming from Aigis’ eyes. A soft blue glow, not enough for his eyes to stop from plunging his world into darkness. Fear, guilt, his mortality piling onto him. He could hear the chains beat against the wall he’s formed, the Seal he’s created at the cost of his life. But it was on the back of his mind, sleep overtaking him, and he forced the thoughts out of his mind, replacing it with the taped-together hope that Aigis would make due on her promise to keep him alive until the coming morning.

**Author's Note:**

> This is labeled as 'minato sleep simulator' on my google doc. I feel like i had to mention that.
> 
> also yea, minato x shinjiro is a underrated ship that i decided to contribute to.


End file.
